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Deployment Checklist

Deployment Checklist

Project: {{PROJECT_NAME}} Version: {{VERSION}} Date: {{DATE}} Author: {{AUTHOR}} Status: Draft | In Review | Approved Reviewers: {{REVIEWERS}}

Document History

Version Date Author Changes
0.1 {{DATE}} {{AUTHOR}} Initial draft

Deployment Metadata

Field Value
Version {{VERSION}}
Target Environment {{ENVIRONMENT}}
Deployment Date {{DATE}}
Deployment Time {{TIME}} {{TIMEZONE}}
Deploy Engineer {{ENGINEER}}
Approver {{APPROVER}}
Deployment Type {{TYPE}}
Change Request # {{CR_NUMBER}}
Rollback Version {{ROLLBACK_VERSION}}

1. Pre-Deployment Checklist

Code Quality Gates

  • Code reviewed and approved — all PRs in this release have ≥ {{REVIEW_COUNT}} approvals
  • All unit tests passing — CI pipeline green on the release branch
  • All integration tests passing — CI pipeline integration stage green
  • Code coverage meets minimum — ≥ {{COV_GATE}}% (current: {{CURRENT_COV}}%)
  • No HIGH/CRITICAL security findings — SAST and SCA scans clean
  • No secrets detected — secret scanning clean
  • Linting passes — no errors in CI lint stage

Staging Verification

  • Staging deployment complete — this exact artifact has been deployed to staging
  • E2E tests passing on staging — automated suite green ({{PASS_COUNT}}/{{TOTAL_COUNT}} tests)
  • Manual QA sign-off obtained — QA team has reviewed new features
  • Performance baseline not degraded — P95 within {{PERF_GATE}}% of baseline
  • Visual regression checks passed (if UI changes)

Database & Migrations

  • Database migrations reviewed — SQL reviewed by a second person
  • Migrations tested on staging — ran successfully, duration recorded: {{MIGRATION_TIME}}min
  • Down/rollback migration tested — migrate down executes without errors
  • Migration script idempotent — safe to run twice without errors
  • Estimated migration time on production documented: {{PROD_MIGRATION_TIME}}min
  • Data backup taken (if destructive migration) — backup ID: {{BACKUP_ID}}

Environment & Configuration

  • All environment variables documented and updated in {{SECRET_STORE}}
  • New secrets provisioned in production secret store
  • Configuration changes reviewed — no unintended changes from staging
  • External API keys are live (not sandbox) credentials
  • DNS records verified (if changes required)

Feature Flags

  • Feature flags configured — new features default OFF in production
  • Kill switches in place for all new significant features
  • Rollout plan documented — which flags, in what order, over what timeline
  • Feature flag audit complete — no stale flags from previous releases

Rollback Readiness

  • Rollback plan documented — see Section 5 and rollback-plan.md
  • Previous version artifact available — {{PREV_IMAGE}} in registry
  • Rollback tested on staging (if DB migrations are included)
  • Rollback owner assigned — {{ROLLBACK_OWNER}} is available during deployment

Operational Readiness

  • On-call engineer notified — {{ONCALL}} is aware and available
  • Deployment window confirmed — {{TIME}} - {{END_TIME}} (off-peak)
  • Monitoring dashboards open and ready
  • War room set up — {{WAR_ROOM_LINK}}
  • Change request approved — CR-{{CR_NUMBER}} approved by {{APPROVER}} on {{DATE}}

2. During Deployment

Step Time Actor Status Notes
Announce deployment start in war room {{ENGINEER}}
Enable maintenance mode (if required) {{ENGINEER}}
Trigger deployment pipeline: {{PIPELINE_LINK}} {{ENGINEER}}
Monitor deployment progress {{ENGINEER}} Watching for errors
Run database migrations (if applicable) {{DB_OWNER}} Duration: {{TIME}}min
Verify migration success: {{VERIFY_CMD}} {{DB_OWNER}}
Confirm new instances healthy (health checks green) {{ENGINEER}}
Confirm all instances running new version {{ENGINEER}}
Run smoke tests: bash scripts/smoke-tests.sh {{ENV}} {{QA}}
Verify health endpoint: curl {{URL}}/health {{ENGINEER}}
Disable maintenance mode (if enabled) {{ENGINEER}}

3. Post-Deployment Checklist

Immediate Verification (First 15 Minutes)

  • Health checks passing — all instances healthy per load balancer
  • Smoke tests pass — automated smoke suite green
  • Critical user journey manual test — manually verify {{CRITICAL_JOURNEY}}
  • Error rate normal — < {{ERROR_THRESHOLD}}% (check {{DASHBOARD_LINK}})
  • P99 latency normal — < {{P99_THRESHOLD}}ms
  • Database connections normal — no connection pool saturation
  • No unexpected errors in logs — {{LOG_DASHBOARD_LINK}} shows clean logs

Feature Validation (First 30 Minutes)

  • New features functional — quick manual test of each feature in scope
  • Feature flags enabled per rollout plan — {{FF_DASHBOARD}} shows correct state
  • Third-party integrations working — payments, email, external APIs responding
  • Version confirmed — GET /api/version or equivalent returns {{VERSION}}

Monitoring Setup (First 60 Minutes)

  • Performance baseline compared — P95 matches or beats staging baseline
  • CPU and memory normal — no upward trend
  • Alerting verified — test alert confirms delivery to on-call
  • Stakeholders notified — release announcement sent to {{NOTIFY_LIST}}
  • Documentation updated — release notes published

4. Rollback Procedure (Quick Reference)

Rollback triggers (any one sufficient):

  • Smoke tests fail after deployment
  • Error rate > {{ROLLBACK_ERROR}}% for > {{ROLLBACK_DURATION}} consecutive minutes
  • P99 > {{ROLLBACK_P99}}ms sustained
  • Data integrity issue detected

Rollback authorization: {{ROLLBACK_AUTHORITY}} or senior engineer on duty

Rollback steps:

# 1. Announce in war room: "Initiating rollback to {{ROLLBACK_VERSION}}"
# 2. Trigger rollback:
{{ROLLBACK_CMD}}

# 3. If DB migration was included — run down migration:
{{DOWN_MIGRATION_CMD}}

# 4. Verify rollback:
curl {{URL}}/health
bash scripts/smoke-tests.sh {{ENV}}

Expected rollback time: {{ROLLBACK_TIME}} minutes Full rollback procedure: rollback-plan.md

5. Emergency Deployment Process

Emergency deployments require:

  1. Sign-off from {{EMERGENCY_AUTHORITY}} (Engineering Manager or above)
  2. At least {{EMERGENCY_REVIEWS}} code reviewer (can be async if truly urgent)
  3. Staging deployment and smoke test (cannot be skipped)
  4. Enhanced post-deploy monitoring for {{EMERGENCY_MONITOR}}h
  5. Full retroactive change request within {{CR_SLA}}h of deployment

Emergency deployment allowed: Security vulnerabilities, data loss bugs, P1 service outages

6. Deployment Window & Blackout Periods

Standard deployment window: {{DEPLOY_WINDOW}} Emergency deployments: Any time, with approvals

Blackout periods (no production deployments):

Period Dates Reason
End of year {{EOY_START}} – {{EOY_END}} High traffic, minimal support
{{EVENT_1}} {{DATE_1}} {{REASON_1}}
{{EVENT_2}} {{DATE_2}} {{REASON_2}}

Sign-Off

Pre-deployment confirmed by: {{ENGINEER}} on {{DATE}} at {{TIME}} Deployment completed by: {{ENGINEER}} on {{DATE}} at {{TIME}} Post-deployment verified by: {{ENGINEER}} on {{DATE}} at {{TIME}}

Approval

Role Name Date Signature
Author
Reviewer
Approver

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